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Community Corner

Falmouth Doctors Retract Wind Turbine Letter

Health effects of wind turbines in Falmouth.   This is a call for the five Falmouth doctors to publicly retract their letter to the Falmouth Board of Health March 19, 2013.      On March 19,2013 five Falmouth medical doctors wrote a letter to the Falmouth Board of Health. The quotes are listed as A B C . The letter is signed by the five doctors and can be reviewed at the link at the bottom of this post.    A. "We do not claim to have expertise in wind energy or acoustics."   Folks,The doctors who consider themselves pillars of the community in the letter state they know nothing about the two different types of wind turbine noise ? Those types of noise are A Regulatory & B Human annoyance. The Massachusetts Clean Energy Center in 2005 referred to the human annoyance noise as the nuisance sound. A fact  .  B.  'We have listened to the wind turbines and find little to hear."    Folks ,These doctors have never spent one night sleeping in any one of the wind turbine victims homes & has never conducted a medical review of the victims or their symptoms ?   C. Credible public health research indicates NIMBYism."   Folks ,The doctors claim to have public research that indicates the people suffering from lack of sleep and health effects in Falmouth are just saying they are all about "Not In My Back Yard ?    Further facts since March 19,2013   The Massachusetts Superior Court has ruled the turbines are a nuisance.     The Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection has notified the Town of Falmouth the turbines are out of state noise compliance.   Vestas wind company the manufacturer of the Falmouth wind turbines admits it has always know of the two distinct types of noise and there is nothing they can do about it.   The Falmouth Zoning Board of Appeals has ruled the wind turbines a nuisance.    Thousands of certified written noise complaints have been made regarding wind turbine noise in Massachusetts.    The Massachusetts Clean Energy Center has changed the setbacks to commercial wind turbines to residential homes to 2000 feet .    There is proof this reference to the two different types of was dropped just prior to the installation of the Falmouth wind turbines : Noise
Noise considerations generally take two forms, state regulatory compliance and nuisance levels at nearby residences:

A. Regulatory compliance: Massachusetts state regulations do not allow a rise of 10 dB or greater above background levels at a property boundary (Massachusetts Air Pollution Control Regulations, Regulation 310 CMR 7.10). This sound level is very unlikely to be a reached incase at the sites we examined.

B. Human annoyance: Aside from Massachusetts regulations, residences must also be taken into consideration. Any eventual turbine would be sited such that it would be inaudible or minimally audible at the nearest residences. At this stage, to check for “fatal flaws,” a rule of thumb can be used: to minimize possible noise impacts,site wind turbines at least three times the blade tip height from residences. Distances from mixed-use areas may be somewhat shorter.
  Here is the link to the letter from the five doctors :  https://docs.google.com/file/d/0ByjfQs1P4lPaMkk2aTVWM0RGWlk/edit

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